I was pretty surprised to see that NBC has picked up the rights to the British show The Kumars at No. 42 in an attempt to retain its Thursday night ratings crown. The Snook and I are big fans of the Kumars, who are an Indian family living in Wembley that host a chat show in their back garden. Guests have to come through the house and meet the whole family (Mom, Dad, and crazy Grandma) before going onstage to be interviewed by the son, Sanjeev. No, it’s not real, but the guests are and it’s still hilarious. (We were damn happy to find it’s on here in Oz.) But I just couldn’t picture Americans getting all the Indian jokes. Then I read that they’re going to redo it with a Mexican-American family. Ahhh! Now that makes more sense. Although I don’t think there’s as much a tradition of self-deprecating Mexican-American humor as there is with the Indian-English. And other than Millionaire, US networks have a bad habit of royally screwing up their British imports (i.e. Cold Feet, Men Behaving Badly). This could be very sucky indeed. (Off topic: Indian-English? Is that what you’d say? That looks weird.)

Raoul Parekh

You’d say Anglo-Indian or British Asian rather than Indian-English. And though the comedians who do The Kumars at No. 42 were fantastic in Goodness Gracious me, I really think The Kumars is appallingly bad.

See, Rodd thought “Anglo-Indian” too. But I always thought (based on the stupid American system, I guess) that you put their “original” ethnicity first, with the “geographical” one second. Anglo-Indian does sound much better though. Thanks for the tip! 🙂

(I disagree that they’re *appallingly* bad though. It all depends on the guest. If it’s someone who “plays along”, the results can be hilarious.)

Martin – I don’t know “Cold Feet” very well. It came on in the States before I came to London, and I didn’t even realize at the time that it was a remake. I just knew that it sucked. They used it as a star vehicle for some dumb tart that had been in a lot of commercials. It tanked pretty quickly. I did watch a bit in London, and I liked the English version a lot better (especially since it had that scruffy Irish guy that I like a lot).

Oh, and randomness – “Queer as Folk” just started here in Oz, and they’re showing the *American* version. We get so many British shows I figured we’d just get the original. I haven’t started watching it though. It’s on Mondays, and my TV Mondays are busy enough.